Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
As the dust settles on the Biden administration’s chaotic final days, the full extent of this brazen climate crisis grift explodes into view like a taxpayer-funded fireworks show gone wrong. What we’ve long suspected—and what I’ve relentlessly documented in my writings—is now irrefutable: the so-called climate emergency has devolved into the single largest theft of taxpayer dollars in human history, dwarfing scandals like Enron and making wars look like efficient investments by comparison.
DOE Secretary Chris Wright Saves Billions by Canceling Wasteful Projects
As the dust settles on the Biden administration’s chaotic final days, the full extent of this brazen climate crisis grift explodes into view like a taxpayer-funded fireworks show gone wrong. What we’ve long suspected—and what I’ve relentlessly documented in my writings—is now irrefutable: the so-called climate emergency has devolved into the single largest theft of taxpayer dollars in human history, dwarfing scandals like Enron and making wars look like efficient investments by comparison.
Unlike wars, which, for all their horrors, often involve building infrastructure, employing millions, and defending nations against real foreign invaders, the climate crisis is an entirely fabricated threat. The supposed enemy here isn’t a hostile army invading our borders but the very air we exhale… carbon dioxide at around 40,000 parts per million in our breath, a harmless, life-essential gas for plants that’s been falsely demonized as a pollutant to justify trillions in theft, equivalent to over three years of the entire U.S. defense budget vanishing into thin air. The “solutions” peddled by activists and bureaucrats invariably boil down to one thing: siphoning vast sums from hardworking taxpayers and funneling them to brand-new nongovernmental organizations and startups that have accomplished precisely nothing, except perhaps enriching politically connected insiders.
This isn’t hyperbole. Over the past few years, trillions of dollars worldwide have vanished into this bottomless pit, with little to show beyond rising global emissions and a cadre of self-proclaimed saviors living large on public funds…
In the United States alone, the last administration’s parting gift was a frantic giveaway of billions in grants, often to entities with no proven track record in environmental work or scientific expertise. These weren’t investments in tangible infrastructure like roads or power plants that could actually reduce real pollution; they were handouts to shadowy groups promising vague “climate resilience” or “clean energy” innovations that never materialize. And who benefits? Not the planet, not the poor, and certainly not you, the taxpayer. Instead, it’s a network of activists, bureaucrats, and political operatives who cloak their greed in moral superiority, all while accusing the fossil fuel industry of prioritizing profits over people.
Let’s dismantle that hypocrisy once and for all: Climate activists perch on their self-righteous moral high ground, shrieking that oil and gas companies are greedy villains torching the Earth for shareholder profits. Yet these hypocrites preside over a system that’s siphoned trillions, far eclipsing fossil fuel profits in recent years, with zero accountability, while the fossil industry employs 12 million people worldwide and powers 82% of global energy, lifting billions from poverty without the endless excuses.
What do these climate grifters offer? Endless conferences, glossy reports, and failed pilot projects that burn through cash without denting emissions. If profits are the sin, then the climate industry is the biggest sinner of all, raking in trillions while the fossil sector actually powers the modern world.
I’ve been sounding the alarm on this for years. In my article “The Great Climate Grift”, I exposed how bureaucrats turned “saving the planet” into a perpetual money machine, with trillions spent on initiatives that achieve nothing measurable while global greenhouse gas levels keep rising. Similarly, in “Exposing the Waste in Climate Solutions”, I detailed how $2 trillion has been wasted on unproven technologies like carbon capture and blue hydrogen, distractions that ignore real environmental issues like actual pollution from heavy metals or plastics. Then there’s “Tax Day Truth Bomb: Where Your Climate Dollars Really Went”, where I revealed how Western emission “reductions” are just illusions created by outsourcing dirty industries to places like China and India, all while taxpayers foot the bill for this global shell game.
The pattern deepened in “Follow the Money: How Climate Bureaucrats Are Robbing Taxpayers Blind”, my deep dive into the Biden administration’s last-minute cash grab, where billions were shoveled to freshly minted nonprofits with no real impact or oversight. And in “Climate Lawfare: Judicial Activism and the $20 Billion Scandal”, I highlighted how judges like Tanya Chutkan blocked efforts to reclaim $20 billion in dubious EPA grants, protecting politically aligned groups over scientific integrity. One glaring example from that piece is the Climate United Fund, which snagged nearly $7 billion despite being only months old at the time.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. High-profile Democrats have been deeply entangled in this web. Exhibit A in this web of corruption: Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democratic powerhouse whose organizations, like Power Forward Communities, vacuumed up a staggering $2 billion in EPA grants under Biden, even though the group reported a laughable $100 in revenue the year prior… talk about turning political clout into a taxpayer-funded jackpot with zero transparency or results.
But finally, a hero emerges from the madness: Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who in a gutsy strike announced earlier this month, obliterated 321 financial awards backing 223 bogus projects, clawing back a whopping $7.56 billion for American taxpayers… funds that could have built 15,000 miles of new highways or funded healthcare for millions instead of vanishing into the climate grift abyss.
These weren’t random cuts; they targeted initiatives deemed economically unviable or misaligned with national energy needs, based on a rigorous review. Shockingly, about 26 percent of these awards, worth over $3.1 billion, were rushed out between Election Day 2024 and Inauguration Day 2025, a blatant attempt to lock in the grift before the new administration could intervene.
We’re talking hydrogen hubs, solar startups, and efficiency alliances handed billions despite lacking real-world experience or viable plans. Secretary Wright deserves our profound thanks for his courage in protecting taxpayer dollars and exposing this farce. In a world where climate activists claim the fossil industry is the enemy, Wright’s actions remind us that the real threat is unchecked bureaucratic spending.
But the devil is in the details, and that’s where the true outrage lies. How did a consortium like ARCHES H2 LLC, formed just in 2022, snag $1.2 billion for a hydrogen project tied more to fossil fuel interests than genuine green innovation? Or why was Heliogen Holdings, a struggling solar startup delisted from the NYSE, awarded tens of millions despite its financial red flags? These are the kinds of egregious handouts that exemplify the grift, and I’ve got the full breakdown ready for subscribers.
Irrational Fear is a reader-supported publication. To finish reading this article, receive new posts, and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Shares of El Segundo-based Beyond Meat fell to less than $1 after a debt deal, down from their 2019 peak of nearly $235.
The plant-based meat maker has seen sales plunge from $465 million in 2021 to $326 million last year as consumers return to animal protein.
Second-quarter sales dropped 20%, part of a broader 18% decline across the U.S. plant-based meat industry over the last two years.
What does it cost a company when it’s no longer in the zeitgeist? For stockholders in Beyond Meat, perhaps as much as 99% of their money, if they bought at the top of the market.
Shares of the El Segundo maker of plant-based meats, an investors’ darling a few year ago, collapsed this week to less than $1 after the company wrapped up a deal to reduce its debt burden. The deal involves issuing up to 326 million new shares to the note holders.
The stock-diluting deal was spurred by declining sales at the company, which makes pea-based foods that mimic the taste of beef, chicken and pork.
Beyond Meat makes a big deal of their environmental credentials;
WE BELIEVE THERE’S A BETTER WAY TO FEED OUR FUTURE.
By shifting from animal to plant-based meat, we can positively affect the planet, the environment, the climate and even ourselves. After all, the positive choices we make every day – no matter how small – can have a great impact on our world.
I believe there is more to this story than consumer economics. I suspect Beyond Meat is a casualty of the betrayal of trust people experienced during the Covid lockdowns.
The same people who promote the climate crisis also told us Covid was so severe we all needed to endure harsh lockdowns. Since Covid claims were exposed as wild exaggerations, people appear to be asking more questions about other claims they took on faith, like the claim that eating real meat hurts the planet.
I suspect companies like Beyond Meat have been caught out by this rise in public skepticism.
Some of the United Kingdom’s most valued trees are struggling to keep pace with climate change and increasing extreme weather.
“We are very concerned that changing conditions are putting our trees under significant stress,” warns Dr Eleanor Tew from Forestry England.
To future-proof our forests, a ‘species for the future’ list has been released highlighting thirty trees likely to thrive in a warmer climate.
It includes familiar names like oak, birch, and alder, alongside less common species such as coast redwood and Corsican pine, which it is hoped will lead to a more resilient woodland.
Oak, birch and alder? What, like the trees that have always grown in the British Isles?
Has anybody seen our forests “under stress”? I take my dog for walk round the local woods most days, and all the trees look as healthy as they ever have.
It is worth noting that Dr Eleanor Tew has no experience in actual forestry work.
Since leaving Cambridge University, she has worked for Forestry England. Her work focuses on the practical application of forest resilience and natural capital concepts, embedding these into day-to-day decision-making. Her academic background is in ecology, conservation and environmental economics, with a PhD from the University of Cambridge exploring natural capital optimisation in UK forestry.
Maybe she should spend a couple of years doing actual forestry work; then she might stop writing this sort of nonsense.
Several major automakers including General Motors (GM) are switching gears when it comes to electric vehicles (EVs) now that the policy landscape has shifted and federal tax credits are expiring, according to multiple reports.
Several major automakers including General Motors (GM) are switching gears when it comes to electric vehicles (EVs) now that the policy landscape has shifted and federal tax credits are expiring, according to multiple reports.
GM noted in a Tuesday Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that the “reassessment of our EV capacity and manufacturing footprint” is “ongoing” and that it will record a $1.2 billion accounting charge “as a result of adjustments to our EV capacity.” GM also recently pivoted to redirect what was planned as a New York EV plant to produce V-8 engines while several other automakers including Stellantis and Ford have also recently canceled or delayed some EV models as the Trump administration and Congress move to roll back Biden-era EV mandates and incentives.
“General Motors built its EV strategy on government handouts, mandates they refused to fight, and pressure from the ESG cartel, not on consumer demand. Now that Biden’s subsidies are drying up, the market correction is exposing how artificial that demand really was,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The EV push distorted the entire auto industry, forcing companies to chase political favor instead of building cars people actually want. This isn’t a failure of innovation; it’s a failure of central planning.”
The Biden administration pushed for EVs through tax credits and allowed California to effectively impose a national de facto EV mandate. Congress and President Donald Trump blocked the EV mandate and slashed many federal EV incentives, including most recently the $7,500 tax credit, which expired on Sept. 30.
GM noted in its Tuesday filing that it expected the “adoption rate of EVs to slow” after the recent U.S. policy changes, which included the “termination of certain consumer tax incentives for EV purchases and the reduction in the stringency of emissions regulations.”
Several energy policy experts previously explained to the DCNF that the long-standing $7,500 tax credit expanded and extended under the Biden administration distorted markets and threatened consumer choice. Critics like Isaac and senior fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute Steve Milloy argue that these production changes highlighted the market distortion caused by Biden-era policies.
“GM’s problem is that it has allowed the government to decide what consumers should drive. First the government mindlessly demanded ever-greater fuel economy. Then it mandated even more expensive and less practical EVs. Consumers wanted neither,” Milloy told the DCNF. “While consumers could be compelled to pay more for the SUVs they wanted, the government could not make them buy EVs they didn’t want. President Trump has entirely upended about 50 years of car industry kowtowing to the government. GM shareholders are now paying (once again) for folly of government-mandated cars.”
GM did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
“The federal bank regulatory agencies today announced the withdrawal of interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions.” (- Federal Reserve Board, October 16, 2025)
“The federal bank regulatory agencies today announced the withdrawal of interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions.” (- Federal Reserve Board, October 16, 2025) [1]
“The private sector can fend for itself versus global government and the pretense of climate knowledge. The United Nations should not have indirect regulatory authority over the United States. The United States comes first.” (below)
Climate activist Laurie Schoeman, “working at crossroads of climate risk, housing, and capital markets,” posted on social media:
The Federal Reserve Board has announced that U.S. federal finance agencies who regulate our banking and financial sector [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Federal Reserve Board; Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] are withdrawing from the Interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management — a framework designed to help large financial institutions manage exposure to climate risk. This is not an America First move — it’s an America unprepared move.
At a time when communities across the country are already battling floods, fires, and billion-dollar weather events, pulling back on climate risk management isn’t a show of strength — it’s a bet against resilience.
These principles weren’t political; they were pragmatic. Every financial institution, regardless of size, is expected to manage material financial risks — and climate risk is undeniably one of them.
This moment demands leadership from markets, municipalities, and local innovators who understand that ignoring climate risk doesn’t make it disappear — it just compounds the cost. The future rewards those who manage risk, not those who deny it.
COMMENT
This above lament is wrong on all counts. As I commented:
This is good news. Takes politics out. If private parties (banks) really believe this stuff, they can act outside of politics, right?
Schoeman doubled down in response to another comment:
It surprises me because it’s such a shortsighted action for an administration that portends [Sic. “pretends”?] to care a lot about needs of the private sector.
Wrong! The private sector can fend for itself versus global government and the pretense of climate knowledge. The United Nations should not have indirect regulatory authority over the United States. The United States comes first.
“The federal bank regulatory agencies today announced the withdrawal of interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions.
The agencies do not believe principles for managing climate-related financial risk are necessary because the agencies’ existing safety and soundness standards require all supervised institutions to have effective risk management commensurate with their size, complexity, and activities. In addition, all supervised institutions are expected to consider and appropriately address all material financial risks and should be resilient to a range of risks, including emerging risks.
The interagency principles were previously issued jointly by the agencies in October 2023. The notice, which will be issued in the Federal Register, rescinds these principles effective immediately. The OCC withdrew its participation in the principles earlier this year.”
Radia’s WindRunner aircraft could redesign how wind turbine blades and oversized cargo reach remote areas, bypassing outdated road infrastructure limits
The infrastructure supporting global ground transport serves daily traffic but struggles with oversized cargo. Supply chains across the world face increasing pressure as the scale of renewable energy components expands. Wind turbines in particular present a challenge due to their sheer size and the limitations of existing logistics networks.
Radia, founded in 2016 by aerospace engineer Mark Lundstrom, sets out to change this with its WindRunner aircraft. Designed to transport the world’s largest wind turbine blades, WindRunner reaches areas that roads and railways cannot access. Traditional infrastructure can move blades around 70 metres long, but the next generation of turbines requires blades exceeding 100 metres. This creates a need to rethink how energy projects move their largest parts.
…
“Big Western wind turbine makers need direct financial support to make the investments needed to aid decarbonisation,” says Tim Dawidowsky, Chief Operating Officer of Siemens Gamesa. “The supply chain is facing substantial challenges that could limit production capacity and increase turbine prices.”
As far as I can tell the aircraft hasn’t been built yet, they’re looking for funding.
Building an aircraft that size which can land on rough runways shall be, how can I put it, challenging.
I’m no aircraft engineer but I’ve flown light aircraft before. Hitting even a small bump at speed can flex the entire airframe. Large aircraft can have big fluffy wheels and long shock absorber assemblies which can help reduce the peak force inflicted by impacts on bumps, but large and long airframe structures are also more vulnerable to stress. If the front wheels of a 70m+ aircraft hit a bump which isn’t fully absorbed by the wheels and shock absorber assembly, 70m is a lot of leverage. Any slight flaw in the design and even a small bump could result in thousands of tons of force being exerted on components which aren’t designed to take such punishment.
It is just barely possible to build aircraft this large. Ukraine owned the world’s only Antonov An-225 Mriya until it was destroyed during the Russian invasion. The Antonov could carry a 70m cargo. But Ukraine’s ex-soviet airplane required a paved runway over two miles long to get airborne.
The ex-Soviet Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft cost around $300 million to build. I find it difficult to imagine anyone landing a commercial aircraft which costs a third of a billion dollars on a dirt track.
Who still believes wind is the cheapest form of energy? Now all the easy wind locations have been taken, wind now apparently needs financial support to expand, for developing $300 million airplanes intended to be landed on dirt tracks in the middle of nowhere. The cost of wind power just got even more absurd than before.
Hardly the ‘energy security’ Ed Miliband continually warbles on about
If you live in the UK you will have noticed that for most of the last week there was very little wind:
From Sunday through to Friday, wind power was only running at an average of below 2 GW, which is around 7% of demand and, coincidentally, also 7% of its potential capacity:
The National Energy System Operator’s (NESO) ‘Winter Outlook’, which assesses energy security, is built around the assumption that there will always be at least 4,020 MW of wind power available, double what we have had this week:
But the position is much worse than that, because even that 2 GW this week was highly variable and therefore not reliable. There were two long spells when wind output dipped much lower still. In reality, we should not rely on wind power at all as a reserve.
Even though autumn demand is much lower than in mid-winter, the grid still needed 6 GW of imported electricity at times, in addition to gas power running virtually at full blast:
Meanwhile Germany was also short of wind power. On Monday, for instance, wind power sank to supplying just 3% of Germany’s electricity. Germany relied on coal and gas for two thirds of its power that day. This was the same day UK wind power collapsed:
It was not only Germany – Denmark saw its wind power collapse mid-week, as did the smaller producers, such as the Netherlands, France and Belgium:
France still produces plenty of nuclear power, but Belgium and Netherlands rely heavily on coal and gas, just like Germany does.
We are now totally dependent on importing electricity at times of stress. Without these imports there would have been blackouts last week. This is hardly the ‘energy security’ that Ed Miliband continually warbles on about.
The question, of course, is what will happen when the EU start to phase out coal power, as it plans. Energy officials in Germany are already warning of a deficit of 21 GW as early as 2030. Plans to build more gas power plants to take the strain may be thwarted by global demand on turbine manufacturers, which are already fully booked for years ahead.
In theory, power flows around the EU to where the price is highest, which means if we want some, we will have to pay through the nose for it.
But it is becoming increasingly likely that countries will shut down exports and keep whatever power they have for themselves.
There is already opposition in Norway to exporting its cheap hydro power to Denmark, Germany and the UK, as this pushes up its own electricity prices. It is something politicians there can no longer ignore.
While France will still have plenty of nuclear power to sell, there will be huge demand for it from Germany and the Low Countries. We certainly cannot rely in future on importing coal and gas power from Belgium and the Netherlands, which we did last week.
We were even exporting over 1 GW to Ireland, which is hardly sustainable in the long run.
Meanwhile our old and creaking gas power plants will soon start closing down for good. And in their place, we will have more wind and solar farms. But plans to triple offshore wind capacity will make little difference when the wind does not blow, of course. Three times nothing is still nothing!
As for covering the countryside with Chinese-made solar panels, they will not be of much help in winter, when demand for electricity is highest. Thanks to short days and inclement weather, solar farms only produce about 3% of their capacity in winter, and then only for a few hours a day.
We need to cancel further wind farm development and instead start construction of a new fleet of gas power stations to replace older plants and end our reliance on imported power.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen faced two more challenges to her position in the European Parliament last week. She received support from just over half the members of the 720-seat European Parliament in both votes. Neither of the motions of no confidence had a chance of securing the two-thirds majority required to eject the President but still they served as the latest reminder of the increasingly fractured European Parliament and its growing populist factions.
These two “politicians” have brought Europe to ruin. The left one is doubly guilty because she brought the right one to power. Open borders plus deindustrialization for the climate. Historians will, in a few hundred years, after the new Muslim Middle Ages, puzzle over what drove European civilization to suicide (An X post by Chris Veber https://x.com/ChrisVeber1/status/1940673113550659636 )
Diese zwei "Politikerinnen" haben Europa verendet. Wobei die Linke doppelt schuldig ist, weil sie die Rechte an die Macht gebracht hat.
Offen Grenzen plus Deindustrialisierung fürs Klimer. Historiker werden in ein paar hundert Jahren, nach dem neuen muslimischen Mittelalter,… pic.twitter.com/mNIxsF6VOi
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen faced two more challenges to her position in the European Parliament last week. She received support from just over half the members of the 720-seat European Parliament in both votes. Neither of the motions of no confidence had a chance of securing the two-thirds majority required to eject the President but still they served as the latest reminder of the increasingly fractured European Parliament and its growing populist factions.
The Patriots for Europe group, a conservative-populist faction which participated in the parliamentary motion, includes lawmakers from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party and the Rassemblement National (RN) party of Marine Le Pen in France. It criticised the EC’s climate, migration and economic policies. The conservative faction in European politics parallels President Trump’s characteristically blunt address to the United Nations. He had described Europe as “going to hell” through its twin obsessions with mass migration and green energy.
In the same week as the challenging votes in the European parliament, one of Germany’s foremost energy experts, Fritz Vahrenholt, stated that Germany is in the grips of an “energy madness”. The country in his view is headed towards a supply crisis as early as 2030. With every coal or nuclear power plant shut down, supply security is crumbling as the federal Government continues with its disastrous Energiewende experiment.
Ms von der Leyen, alas, is not alone in her suicidal empathy, a condition which scholar Gad Saad defines as “excessive compassion that undermines societal cohesion, values and security when it lacks limits”. The objects of such “excessive compassion” could be polar bears that refuse to go extinct despite the repeated claims of climate alarmists or the economic migrants from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere that falsely claim refugee status in Europe.
From Merkel’s Folly to Ursula’s Creed
In Plato’s Republic, the ideal state was ruled by philosopher kings — enlightened guardians who alone could perceive truth hidden from ordinary folk. Two millennia later, Europe’s fate lies not with kings but with philosopher queens — women of unimpeachable confidence, certain of their own virtue and contemptuous of dissent. Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, Annalena Baerbock and Kaja Kallas together form a sisterhood of hubris that has guided the continent into its gravest crisis since 1945. Their vision — green utopia, open borders, perpetual warmongering — has produced instead economic decay, social fragmentation and geopolitical irrelevance.
Germany’s – and by extension, Western Europe’s – long descent began under Merkel’s dual obsessions: shutting down nuclear and coal power in favour of windmills and solar panels and opening the borders to mass migration from the Middle East and North Africa. Germany’s Energiewende (energy transition) promised a cleaner, safer future but delivered only intermittent electricity, astronomical energy prices and deindustrialisation. When Merkel welcomed over a million migrants in 2015, the ‘doctors and engineers’ she promised as an antidote to Western Europe’s low fertility rates failed to materialise. What Germany and the EU at large received was an influx of fighting-age, crime-prone males and their dependants, few employable, many hostile to assimilation and all eager clients of an already overstretched welfare state.
The social consequences were predictable: crime surges and parallel societies in the streets of Cologne and Berlin, as in many other cities of Europe ranging from Malmo in Sweden to Southport in England. The economic consequences were equally dire. As industry fled to the United States and Asia in search of affordable energy, Germany — once Europe’s workshop — now faces stagnation. Yet Merkel’s reward was canonisation by Brussels and the pliant media as the moral conscience of Europe.
In stepped Ursula von der Leyen, whose earlier career as Germany’s defence minister was a masterclass in incompetence. By 2018, the Bundeswehr possessed barely a handful of operational tanks and aircraft. What mattered, however, was not readiness but rectitude: gender quotas and diversity seminars counted for more than functioning tanks and helicopters. Her promotion to the presidency of the European Commission — unelected, unaccountable and serenely self-assured — was little surprise. In Brussels, failure is the ultimate credential.
Von der Leyen has since elevated the Energiewende to the continental scale. In her ‘State of the European Union‘ address delivered last month, she doubled down on the “green transformation” even as Europe’s industries collapse under electricity costs triple those in the United States. Germany’s deindustrialisation accelerates; Britain (under both Conservative and Labour governments) tethers itself to the EU’s climate and immigration policies and shutters steelworks, refineries and offshore oil and gas operations. Yet von der Leyen’s Orwellian sermonising continues, invoking economic competitiveness and energy security while throttling the very fossil fuels sector that would deliver economic growth and affordable energy. In effect, Europe has become a civilisation offering to sacrifice its productive capacity at the altar of Gaia.
Von der Leyen’s climate fundamentalism is matched only by her zeal for moral policing. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán is denounced as an “ally of Russia” for daring to continue importing affordable gas supplies and to reject mass immigration in defence of Christian traditions of family and nation. Slovakia’s Robert Fico earns similar scorn. Their refusal to embrace unvetted mass migration and the latest ‘woke’ gender dogmas while not supporting the EU’s escalating war rhetoric marks them as heretics to the European creed.
So unity [in the EU] does not mean that I as a Hungarian President should “shut up” always. … It is not written anywhere. I am here to represent the national interest of Hungary. And on that basis, I would like to make deals, agreements, compromises, whatever with the other country leaders who represent their own national interests. So I don’t represent the globalist elite here or the European bureaucrats. … I am standing firmly on the basis of national interest. … Hungary first, I suppose for you Germany first. That’s right. So lets sit down and understand what is good for Germans, what is [good] for the Hungarians. You are big, we are smaller. Let’s make a deal on how to cooperate. That’s European politics. Not to say that ‘you should follow the Unity, shut up’. That’s what you are saying. It’s impossible.
The globalist intolerance for national interests extends beyond rhetoric. Brussels seeks ever-greater control over national politics, nullifying elections in Romania and meddling in Moldova under the pretext of ‘Russian interference’, providing remarkable parallels to the Russian collusion hoax operation run by Presidents Obama and Biden to undermine President Trump during his first term in the US. The Commission now flirts with rules granting government access to private internet communications, effectively outlawing encrypted speech — the “right to whisper”, as one commentator called it. The self-anointed defenders of democracy have become its most efficient undertakers.
Meanwhile, von der Leyen lectures Beijing about state subsidies even as the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy remains the world’s largest distortionary scheme adversely affecting farmers everywhere. She admonishes China for trading with Russia while her own member states import record volumes of Russian LNG via intermediaries. In Moscow, the hypocrisy provokes derision; in Beijing, it elicits contempt. As the Wall Street Journal noted some time ago, the EU is long used to “punching well below its weight” in global affairs.
Kaja Kallas – former prime minister of Estonia, newly anointed as the EU’s foreign-policy chief – brings ideological zeal to match Ursula’s sanctimony. She openly advocates the dismemberment of Russia, oblivious to the historical resonance of such fantasies. Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s former Green foreign minister and now President of the UN General Assembly, even declared that her commitment to Ukraine outweighed her duty to German voters — a statement revealing the mindset of Europe’s managerial class. Democratic accountability to constituents and their material needs is a nuisance when one possesses ‘noble intentions’.
Decline by Design
Europe’s malaise is not merely policy error; it is civilisational. For decades, the continent has elevated sentiment over reason, appearance over substance. The same impulse that replaces engineers with activists in energy ministries now promotes failed ministers to international office. Baerbock moves from Berlin to New York; Kallas becomes the face of EU diplomacy. Incompetence is no obstacle.
The economic cost of this virtue signalling is catastrophic. Europe’s electricity and gas prices remain among the highest in the world, crippling its manufacturing base. Automakers, fertiliser plants, aluminium smelters and chemical giants relocate to China, the Middle East and the United States where energy remains abundant and policy rational. Europe’s share of global industrial output shrinks yearly; its debt-laden welfare states consume ever more of the shrinking pie.
Source: UN and World Bank; projections from 2023 onwards based on Oxford Economics outlook
In geopolitics, the EU supported the US strategy of expanding NATO eastward following the collapse of the USSR and the reunification of Germany. This was against the advice of figures of America’s own analysts such as George Kennan — hailed as among the greatest US diplomats in the post-war era. As an astute Russia observer, he described NATO expansion as “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold war era”.
John Mearsheimer – an international relations scholar of repute – observed in 2015 that Western policymakers led Ukraine “down the primrose path” to self-destruction. Now, as Ukraine heads to inexorable defeat, Europe faces the consequences of its own delusions. Yet the unhinged rhetoric in Brussels grows only shriller — contradictorily warning of imminent Russian invasions into East Europe and beyond while casting the Russian economy as simultaneously weak and about to collapse and President Putin facing regime change.
The male counterparts of Europe’s philosopher queens are no less absurd. Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, is famous for having referred to Donald Trump as “daddy” in an episode of cringing obsequiousness. Emmanuel Macron – who began his presidency comparing himself to the Roman king of gods Jupiter – now presides over a nation wracked by debt, riots, industrial unrest and a fourth prime minister in under two years. Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor who is equally unpopular, issues belligerent warnings of war with Russia with a puny German army and a rapidly shrinking economy. Things are as bad if not worse across the English Channel as the UK’s Keir Starmer faces humiliation as the ‘least popular PM of all time’ since records began; the same ignominy holds for the country’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. The European stage resembles an operetta – all pomp, no power.
Hubris, however, always meets its nemesis in reality. The laws of physics do not entertain Europe’s green fantasies. Wind and solar cannot power a continent; hydrogen remains an expensive chimera; carbon-capture projects collapse one after another. There are increasing signs of Brussels retreating on several fronts in its quest for green utopia.
It was only just over two weeks ago that von der Leyen boasted at the Global Renewables Summit in New York about the EU’s green agenda: “The momentum in Europe is real… with our Clean Industrial Deal we are helping industries innovate and adapt.” But last week, the EU’s Net Zero agenda suffered a major blow when the centre-Right political parties in the European Parliament agreed to roll back a range of green mandates and regulations on businesses.
According to Politico, there is an “emerging rightward rupture that is reshaping European policymaking”. The European People’s Party lead negotiator on climate issues declared that “It is very clear for all the political groups that the majorities have changed in the Parliament, and all the political groups have to adapt to the new reality”. The EU will now pare back sustainability reporting and supply chain due diligence obligations for businesses after pressure from industry and foreign investors. As Bloombergreported, lawmakers voted to “drastically curtail” ESG directives once trumpeted as non-negotiable.
As the ideological façade cracks in Germany, the AfD surges in the polls despite Government attempts to outlaw it. In France, Marine Le Pen has been disqualified to hold office, yet her party gains ground. In Britain, the Reform Party has been surging in popularity and threatens the duopoly of Labour and the Conservatives. Across Europe, the populist Right articulates what the Establishment will not: that policy choices over energy security, mass immigration and escalating war efforts are bankrupting the continent both morally and financially.
Europe’s decline is not inevitable, but it is self-inflicted. A civilisation that once charted the seas, mapped the heavens and electrified the world now cannot keep its lights on without imported gas. It lectures Africa on solar panels while burning imported American wood pellets in place of coal. It decries nationalism while erecting bureaucratic fortresses devoted to globalism in Brussels.
Behind the rhetoric of progress lies an ancient impulse — the search for moral purity through sacrifice. The Aztecs tore out human hearts to appease the sun; modern Europe sacrifices its industries, borders and freedoms to sustain the illusion of environmental virtue. The climate cult functions as an ‘oligarchic strategy‘ — a mechanism through which elites amass power under the guise of planetary salvation. The victims are the working and middle classes who pay Europe’s highest energy bills and the future generations who inherit spiralling debts.
Von der Leyen recently urged multilateral development banks to focus on climate change rather than poverty despite US opposition — a statement that perfectly encapsulates the inversion of priorities. For Europe’s elites, the problem with the poor is not lack of opportunity but insufficient decarbonisation. Yet as empirical evidence shows, economic growth — not emissions cuts — remains the most reliable path to environmental improvement and human welfare.
The Coming Reckoning
The geopolitical humiliation of Europe is already manifest. The continent once balanced the world’s powers; it is now a mere appendage of American strategy. Its energy policy is dictated by Washington’s sanctions; its foreign policy by NATO’s dictates. Even as the BRICS bloc expands, embracing Gulf monarchies and Asian economic giants, Western Europe clings to a worldview in which moral posturing substitutes for realpolitik.
As President Trump ends US financing of the Ukraine war, Brussels faces an existential test. Without American financial support, the façade of unity will crumble. Energy shortages, fiscal crises and social unrest will expose the fragility of Europe’s post-Christian, post-industrial experiment.
Plato’s philosopher kings were to rule by reason; Europe’s philosopher queens rule by emotion. They conflate compassion with competence, signalling with substance. The result is a polity unfit for purpose — moralistic, militarily impotent, economically stagnant and socially fractured. One hopes that the physics and economics of energy, the arithmetic of national debt and the instincts of ordinary people will, in time, reassert themselves. If that were so, Europe may rediscover the virtues it once taught the world in its Age of Enlightenment.
Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic‘s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.
You must be logged in to post a comment.